Easter Treasure Hunt

 Hello, and welcome if you have hopped by here on the Easter Treasure Hunt. For a full list of participating blogs please visit Jo at Serendipitous Stitching

Here is my Easter themed stitching. This little cutie is a free design from Durene Jones' Facebook page

The letter you need for your Treasure Hunt is:-

And the next stop is:-

Elfin Stitches

Gifted Gorgeousness March

 Well that came around fast! It is time for the March edition of Gifted Gorgeousness, the monthly blog hop where we show off our gift related crafting. For a full explanation see Jo's blog

Just the one thing to show this month. This little pillow I stitched for Barb for her birthday

The design is free one from Kincavel Krosses though I swapped in my own colours. The little rosette decoration is just a length of the ricrac gathered and rolled.

February Gifted Gorgeousness

 Running a little late with my GG post this month. 

If you aren't familiar with GG pop on over to Jo's blog for a full explanation, but in a nutshell it is a monthly show and tell of gift related crafting.

So what do I have to show this month? 

I took part in a Valentine's Exchange on Needlecraft Haven. This is the beautiful card and stitched pillow I received from Mary

I sent to Clare but I forgot to get a photograph before I posted it so you'll need to check out Clare's blog to see it

I also made this shirt for David this month

Check out the little Kylie and the Machine label I tucked under the pocket

 

Secret Stitching Sweetheart

 Hello and welcome to the Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop organised by Jo. Pop over to her blog at Serendipitous Stitching to see a list of all the blogs taking part.

Here is the Secret Stitching I was sent. 

Isn't it lovely? So delicate and pretty, I wonder who stitched it

I'm off now to see who got the one I stitched

New Year - New Gifted Gorgeousness

 The first Gifted Gorgeousness of 2021. And also my first post since the last GG of 2020. Whoops.

For more details of Gifted Gorgeousness please see Jo's blog here

So many gifts to show this time around as both my Birthday and Christmas have fallen in the last month.

For my Birthday I received some wonderful gifts, including these wonderful hand knitted gloves from Julie and  a set of really useful bookmarkers from Clare. (I don't know why it's flipped this photo over, you'll just have to lean your heads!)

and my friend made me this stunning runner

At Christmas I was just as lucky receiving these amazing goodies from lovely stitching friends 

Clockwise from the top - chocolate  and star shaped ornament from Julie, square ornament from Mary, stitched coaster from Clare and bundle of sparkly fat quarters from Karan

And this fabulous book from Barb

My daughters bought me this funky sewing themed fabric and rainbow sewing shears

As well as the usual geeky haul

a Marvel Heroes "Pin-up Boys" calendar, a "Sexy Jean-Luc" mouse mat, and a cat's backsides colouring book!

I was also lucky enough to win a pre-Christmas Instagram giveaway and recieved these two wonderful prints 

The "Wonderful" poster is from Pengelly Art, and the awesome "Penguin in a Jumper" Lino Print is from Liquorice Lino

I kind of dropped the ball with the gifts I made for people, and completely forgot to get pictures of most of them. I made quite a few roll up "tool pouches" for friends and family, some with sewing accessories and some with make up brushes. I didn't photograph them all, but here are the two I made for my girls.

I made a set of table mats for my Sister and Brother-in-law. I forgot to photograph them too, but she sent me this picture to show that her cat approves

Well that about wraps it up for the GG part of the post. The other thing is my annual Finishes/Reads/Shoes tally. It was a bit skewed for last year as you might imagine, but the final total was 95 finishes, 37 books and one pair of shoes. Nobody guessed anything like that (not surprising) but Julie was closest to the number of finishes (she guessed 104) so I'll pop a little prize in the post at some point. I've re-set the counter, so feel free to have a guess for 2021.

The Last Gifted Gorgeousness of The Year

 Hi and welcome to December's Gifted Gorgeousness post. See Jo's blog here for full details, but essentially Gifted Gorgeousness is a monthly chance to show off anything we can shoehorn into the category of "gifts".

As is usual in December a lot of what I've been making I can't really show yet, but I can show you the ornaments I sent and received in the Needlecraft Haven Ornament Exchange

Here is the ornament I sent to Julie

And here is the truly beautiful Christmas tree ornament that Clare sent to me

Also I made me and the girls matching Christmas t-shirts, because we aren't too old for that right?

Online Advent Calendar Day 6

 Hello and welcome to day 6 of the 2020 online Advent Calendar as hosted by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching

I haven't really done a lot of specifically Christmas crafting this year, but here is a picture of this year's Christmas door wreath, made using foliage from our garden, which sort of counts (as always, please refrain from observing that the door needs painting).

And here is a Christmas table runner I made last year, and which miraculously remained unstained enough to use again this year

The discussion topic for this year's Advent calendar is your favourite book for this time of year. Although I read voraciously I don't really have any particular seasonal favourites so I thought I'd mention a couple
of the books that the girls used to love when they were small

Mog's Christmas by Judith Kerr has Mog the forgetful cat, at first upset and confused by all the busyness of Christmas (she is particularly alarmed by a tree walking around), but eventually everything calms down ("the tree had stopped walking about and made itself all pretty")

or there is this one

Eloise at Christmastime by Kay Thompson (Illus Hilary Knight). We only discovered Eloise by chance, picking up the book purely because our elder daughter is called Eloise, but were utterly charmed by the adventure s of this precocious little rich girl, who lives with, and pretty much runs rings around, her nanny in New York's Plaza Hotel